Chaz Lanier‘s rookie season with the Detroit Pistons was relatively quiet, averaging just under eight minutes in 34 NBA games, splitting his time between Detroit and the G League’s Motor City Cruise.
Lanier, a 2025 second-round draft pick out of Tennessee, appears to be making an early case for a larger role with the Pistons next season. The 6-foot-3 guard averaged 17.4 points in five Summer League games for the Pistons, earning a spot Monday morning among ESPN’s Summer League superlatives as the best second-round sophomore in the circuit.
The Pistons selected guard Chaz Lanier in the second round of the 2025 NBA Draft.
“Blink and you missed Lanier’s rookie season: He played more minutes in the G League than he did for the Pistons, and he barely saw the court in the playoffs,” ESPN’s Ben Golliver writes. “That’s often how life goes for second-round picks on aspiring contenders. Lanier, 24, had no intention of laying low in Las Vegas …”
Advertisement
Lanier shot 51.1% from 3-point range (23 of 45), and had a couple of huge games, including a 25-point performance in a 103-94 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers, and 24 points in an 86-75 loss to the New York Knicks, in which he scored 18 in the first half and went 8 of 13 from 3-point range.
That 3-point shooting likley is welcome news for the Pistons, who were 17th in the NBA last season from beyond the arc, at 35.6%. Lanier was just 19 of 67 from 3-point range (28.4%) in limited time as a rookie, averaging just 2.4 points per game.
“The Pistons ranked 29th in 3-point attempts last season, so Lanier’s high-volume, high-efficiency shooting in Las Vegas should get their attention,” Golliver writes.
The summer apparently wasn’t as strong for a pair of Michigan lottery picks, with Golliver naming Morez Johnson Jr. the summer league’s “most inconsistent rookie,” and Aday Mara, as the most disappointing, though they both come with caveats.
Advertisement
Johson’s debut with the Dallas Mavericks, who took the 6-foot-9 forward at No. 9 overall in last month’s NBA Draft, was huge, with 27 points, eight rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks, before essentially disappearing in a second game.
Mara, meanwhile, averaged just 8.7 points and 7.7 rebounds in three games with the Oklahoma City Thunder, who selected the 7-foot-3 center at No. 12 overall.
‘Don’t overreact yet,” Golliver writes. “Mara excelled when surrounded by NBA-caliber players at the University of Michigan, and he is set to join the league’s most talented roster in Oklahoma City.”
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Pistons guard Chaz Lanier among ESPN’s Summer League superlatives
Comments
Advertisement